Public schools vs. their unproven alternatives

CORPUS CHRISTI - In a recent letter to the editor, Gen. Marc Cisneros wondered why private schools do better than public schools and suggested diverting public school funds to vouchers to send more students to private schools. His thinking is in line with the severe criticism of public education that has been prominent in the media for the last two decades or so.

The television news analyst Chris Matthews, for example, always precedes the words "public schools" with the word "failed." There is even a forthcoming movie that celebrates the takeover of a public school by a group of parents and teachers under a parent empowerment law. One commentator said that she was happy that such manifestations of "school reform" have become cool.

The motivations of these critics are mixed. Some are doubtlessly sincere and others simply want to erode support for public schools to advance their own favored alternatives, usually school vouchers or charter schools.

School vouchers permit parents to use public funds to enroll their children in private schools. Although school vouchers are not currently available in Texas, bills to authorize them have been introduced repeatedly in the Legislature and will probably be introduced again.

Charter schools currently exist in Texas as schools of choice that are funded by the state, are somewhat deregulated, have varied curricula and have no prescribed attendance zones. Advocates for charter schools in Texas have recently sued the state for additional resources and the expansion of charter schools.

The problem with these alternatives is that research reveals that they are no better than the public schools in promoting student learning. You need go no farther than to your nearest computer to access the Internet and find a review of such research. For example, if you Google "Keeping Informed about School Vouchers," you will find an excellent review by the Center on Educational Policy that concludes that vouchers offer no advantage in increasing student achievement. Similarly, if you search for "Comparing Private Schools and Public Schools Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling" (don't be intimidated by the title), you will find a study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress that compares the academic achievement of public and private school students.

After adjusting for differences in the home backgrounds of students (always a factor in student achievement test scores) the results were mixed, with public school students sometimes outscoring their private school peers.

Close to home, a report called "Evaluation of Texas Charter Schools," a study conducted by the Education Research Center of Texas A&M University, concluded that "student performance at charter schools is comparable to student performance at matched traditional public schools." A study of Texas charter schools by the Texas Center for Educational Research found mixed results, with charter school students in elementary schools performing worse than their peers in traditional public schools while charter school secondary students performed somewhat better. A 2006 study by the Center found that the academic performance of charter school students was below that of their traditional public school counterparts.

Supporters of vouchers and charter schools sometimes cite the value of the competition these alternatives provide for public schools, stimulating them to improve their own academic achievement. To address this question a report in a book called The Charter School Experiment reviewed 11 investigations of the effect of charter schools on the academic performance of neighboring public schools and concluded thusly:'"In sum, the results of the 11 studies are mixed, with three studies finding negative competitive effects, three no effects, and five positive effects. Where positive effects were found, they are generally quite small."

These studies lead me to the conclusion that there is no compelling reason for creating new alternatives to public schools in Texas or expanding those that already exist. There seems to be no particular advantage to these alternatives and considerable potential for duplication and inefficiency.

Historically, the great majority of American children have been educated in traditional public schools and will undoubtedly continue to be educated there. Public schools have been our best means for teaching citizenship, promoting social and economic mobility, and equipping the nation for global competitiveness. Why not direct our efforts toward maintaining and improving an institution that has served us well over many generations rather than redirecting resources toward the creation or expansion of unproven alternatives?